SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH LITERACY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS potx

SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ENGLISH LITERACY IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
Key Issues and Promising Practices
Diane August
August & Associates
Report No. 61
February 2003
This report was published by the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk
(CRESPAR), a national research and development center supported by a grant (No. R-117-D40005)
from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education.
The content or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of
Education or any other agency of the U.S. Government. Reports are available from: Publications
Department, CRESPAR/Johns Hopkins University; 3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 200; Baltimore
MD 21218. An on-line version of this report is available at our web site: www.csos.jhu.edu.
Copyright 2003, The Johns Hopkins University, all rights reserved.

iii
THE CENTER
Every child has the capacity to succeed in school and in life. Yet far too many children fail
to meet their potential. Many students, especially those from poor and minority families, are
placed at risk by school practices that sort some students into high-quality programs and
other students into low-quality education. CRESPAR believes that schools must replace the
“sorting paradigm” with a “talent development” model that sets high expectations for all
students, and ensures that all students receive a rich and demanding curriculum with
appropriate assistance and support.
The mission of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk
(CRESPAR) is to conduct the research, development, evaluation, and dissemination needed
to transform schooling for students placed at risk. The work of the Center is guided by three
central themes—ensuring the success of all students at key development points, building on
students’ personal and cultural assets, and scaling up effective programs—and conducted

through research and development programs in the areas of early and elementary studies;
middle and high school studies; school, family, and community partnerships; and systemic
supports for school reform, as well as a program of institutional activities.
CRESPAR is organized as a partnership of Johns Hopkins University and Howard
University, and supported by the National Institute on the Education of At-Risk Students (At-
Risk Institute), one of five institutes created by the Educational Research, Development,
Dissemination and Improvement Act of 1994 and located within the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement (OERI) at the U.S. Department of Education. The At-Risk
Institute supports a range of research and development activities designed to improve the
education of students at risk of educational failure because of limited English proficiency,
poverty, race, geographic location, or economic disadvantage.
v
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this report is to summarize research on the role of English oral proficiency
in acquiring English literacy, describe the issues that English-language learners (ELLs)
encounter because of their developing English oral proficiency, and report on best practices
in supporting English language development in the context of literacy instruction for these
students. Of primary interest in this report is the vast majority of ELLs who are not learning-
disabled, but require time to become English proficient. Further, this report focuses on
school-aged children. To a large extent, the studies cited here are drawn from research
conducted with children who are learning English as a second language where English is the
societal language.
The report first addresses the relationship between oral language proficiency and
literacy and reported on a review of second language instruction. Then, component by
component, it describes in detail what the research tells us about effective literacy instruction
for English-speaking students, the issues that English language learners face, and promising
practices for promoting English literacy for English language learners. The report next
reviews family literacy programs and special education programs and discusses cross-cutting
issues in the acquisition of literacy, including assessments and benchmarks, accommodating
multiple levels of English proficient students in literacy instruction, and integrating subject

matter into literacy instruction.
Finally, it concludes with a plea for additional research on the development of literacy
for English language learners and brief mention of two areas worthy of considerable
additional attention—technology and comprehension.
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Drs. Robert Slavin, Margarita Calderón, and Jill Fitzgerald
for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of this report.
1
English language learners are defined as children who come from language backgrounds other than English
and whose English proficiency is not yet developed to the point where they can profit fully from English-only
instruction.
2
Academic English proficiency is defined by student performance on a variety of standardized reading tests,
including the MacMillan Informal Reading Inventory, the Woodcock Language Battery, and the Degrees of
Reading Power Test.
1
INTRODUCTION
Immigration has brought about significant changes in the U.S. student population. In
particular, the number and percentage of immigrants in schools have increased dramatically
since 1970. From 1970 to 1995, the number of immigrant children, ages 5 to 20, living in the
United States more than doubled, from 3.5 to 8.6 million. As the number grew, immigrant
children represented a larger percentage of students in U.S. schools, increasing from 6% in
1970 to 16% in 1995 and 19% in 1997 (Ruiz de Velasco & Fix, 2000). While their numbers
have increased, English language learners (ELLs) lag significantly behind their fluent
English-speaking peers in reading. For example, in California, ELLs participating in state-
mandated standardized testing performed worse at all grade levels and were substantially
more likely to score below the nationally ranked 25th percentile. In addition, ELLs are
substantially less likely than their peers to finish high school. About 20% of these 16-to-24-
year-olds, compared to 10% of their English-speaking counterparts, were not enrolled in

school and did not have a high school diploma (Ruiz de Velasco & Fix, 2000).
Oral English language proficiency plays a role in children’s ability to read in English.
Moreover, the acquisition of oral English proficiency does not occur overnight. Recent
research by Hakuta, Butler, and Witt (1999) indicates that even in districts considered the
most successful in teaching English to ELLs,
1
oral English proficiency takes 3 to 5 years to
develop, and academic English proficiency (defined by student performance on a variety of
standardized English reading tests
2
) can take 4 to 7 years.
Purpose and Scope of the Report
The purpose of this report is to summarize research on the role of English oral proficiency
in acquiring English literacy, describe the issues that English-language learners (ELLs)
encounter because of their developing English oral proficiency, and report on best practices
in supporting English language development in the context of literacy instruction for these
students. Of primary interest in this report is the vast majority of ELLs who are not learning-
disabled, but require time to become English proficient. Further, this report focuses on
school-aged children. To a large extent, the studies cited here are drawn from research
conducted with children who are learning English as a second language where English is the
societal language. This represents an attempt to control for several variables, including the
target language (language to be learned) and the sociopolitical context in which the language
2
is learned. This may impact reading development in a second language and, thus, impede
generalizations across target languages and language-learning settings (Grabe, 1991).
It should be noted from the outset that this report, although focusing on the
development of English literacy, does not advocate English-only instruction for ELLs.
Research indicates that children who acquire literacy skills in a first language transfer those
skills to their second language (Fitzgerald, 1995; Garcia, 1998). Collier and Thomas (1989)
report that children who had attended school and learned basic literacy skills in a native

language before emigrating to the United States achieved academic parity with peers as soon
as they had acquired proficiency in English in U.S. schools. In contrast, younger children
showed long-lasting negative effects on academic achievement associated with initial literacy
instruction in English (Collier & Thomas, 1989). Similar findings for Finnish speakers in
Sweden have been reported by Skutnabb-Kangas and Toukomaa (1979, cited in Snow,
Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Not all contexts allow for primary-language instruction, however,
and thus there is a need for high-quality programs that instruct ELLs in English only
(Genesee, 1999). Also, English literacy is an important component of all bilingual programs.
Finally, as a practical matter, because literacy is so important in all academic areas, ELLs
must be given every opportunity to become competent English readers.
Method Used to Conduct the Review
To locate relevant publications, the author of this review searched the ERIC, PsychInfo,
LLBA, and Sociological Abstracts databases using limiters related to literacy and ELLs. The
keywords used in the different databases varied because each database has its own
categorization of keywords and subject headings. In general, keywords defining the
population (English as a second language, limited English proficient or LEP, non-English
speaking, bilingual, linguistic minorities, and/or immigrants) were combined with keywords
describing reading and language (reading, literacy, language acquisition, second language
learning, writing, language/reading/speech development, oral/verbal communication,
vocalization, voice, and grammar). A “network” approach was also used. That is, reference
lists of relevant documents were checked for additional publications, and relevant
publications were reviewed.
For this review, the author selected a subset of studies that was best able to clarify the
relationship between oral proficiency and literacy for second language learners, as well as
to highlight effective practice in the various component skills of reading. Only empirical
research was included in these sections of the report.
Organization of the Report
The report first discusses the relationship between oral language proficiency (OLP) and
literacy. Next, it turns to a review of second language instruction. Then, component by
3

component, it describes in detail what the research says about effective literacy instruction
for English-speaking students, the issues that ELLs face as they learn to read and write
English, and effective practices for promoting English literacy for ELLs. The components,
in the order they are addressed, are: phonological awareness, word reading, fluency, word
knowledge, and comprehension. The report concludes with a discussion of cross-cutting
issues in literacy, including assessments and benchmarks, multiple levels of English
proficiency among students, and integration of subject matter into literacy instruction, family
literacy, and special education.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
ORAL LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND READING
Relationship Between First Language Oral Proficiency
and First Language Reading
According to Geva and Petrulis-Wright (1999), one of the difficulties involved in
investigating the relationship between oral language proficiency and reading is that neither
oral language proficiency nor reading represents a single skill. Rather, each comprises a
complex set of skills. According to a broad definition, reading comprises decoding and
comprehension-based processing. Oral language includes such components as vocabulary
(lexical knowledge), syntax (knowledge of the rules of sentence formation), phonology
(being able to perceive and produce the phonemes that form the sound system), and
morphology (knowledge of the rules of word formation). In addition, some researchers
(Cummins, 1991; Peregoy & Boyle, 1991) posit that general cognitive/academic maturity
underlies both oral language proficiency and literacy.
A study of the relationship between oral proficiency and literacy is further
complicated because each skill is dynamic and varies at different developmental stages
(Chall, 1996). For example, beginning readers focus primarily on decoding individual letters
and words. For skilled readers, decoding has become more automatic, so they focus on
comprehension. There are also changes as children develop oral language proficiency. Geva
and Petrulis-Wright (1999, p. 4) provide a useful summary:
At an early stage, the young infant learns to produce the phonemes necessary
for first language speech; from age one to three the child acquires between

1,000 and 3,000 words and starts to connect words into simple sentences;
from three to five, the child learns concepts like rhyming and basic
morphological rules; from five to eight, the child’s language becomes
increasingly advanced, with the addition of complex phonology and more
elaborate syntactic, morphological and cohesive structures. Throughout the
process the child is learning about the social context of language.
4
Chall (1996) suggests that from birth to around age eight, OLP precedes reading
development, and afterward, as the language in reading materials becomes more advanced
than the child’s OLP, reading contributes to its development. When children begin reading
in their first language (L1), the text they are reading is considerably below their level of oral
language proficiency; their focus is on learning the print-sound code. In second and third
grades, children read material that requires more advanced vocabulary and more developed
syntax. From fourth grade on, they read more advanced texts, which include unfamiliar
vocabulary, more complex syntactic structures, and new information. This begins to
contribute to oral language proficiency (Chall, 1989; Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990).
Relationship Between Second Language Oral Proficiency
and Second Language Reading
According to Peregoy and Boyle (1991), general second language (L2) proficiency can be
defined as the core of L2 linguistic knowledge that applies to both oral and written language.
Although listening, speaking, reading, and writing differ in many ways and although it is
possible to separately assess proficiency in each, it, nevertheless, can be argued that the four
processes share many features from the lexical, syntactic, and semantic systems of the
language. This common core can be defined as general language proficiency. The positive
correlations reported in the literature between oral language and reading performance can be
substantially explained by their common dependence upon general L2 proficiency. Thus,
general L2 language proficiency places a “ceiling” on reading comprehension (Devine,
1988). General L2 proficiency places a ceiling on listening, speaking, and writing as well.
To avoid confusion, this review seeks to examine the relationship between oral
proficiency in English for second language learners and their English literacy. Researchers

have documented a relationship between oral language proficiency and second language
reading. For example, Peregoy (1989) conducted a multiple case study with six lower-SES,
Spanish-speaking, Mexican American fifth graders. Its goal was to examine their language
and reading performance in Spanish and English. Subjects represented three different levels
of English proficiency. All subjects attended the same bilingual education program, four
since kindergarten and two since third grade. Results suggested that second language oral
proficiency was positively related to reading comprehension for these children. An analysis
of line-by-line reading in English indicated that the low scores of the less English-proficient
students resulted from limited vocabulary and insufficient sensitivity to syntax. In addition,
decoding difficulties occasionally emerged. The researchers also found that the low
proficiency pair, although scoring low in English, scored high in Spanish. This verifies that
they were good readers, and helps isolate second language proficiency as a major source of
their difficulty.
In a second study, Peregoy and Boyle (1991) sought to determine the specific
linguistic dimensions of L2 oral proficiency that differentiate low, intermediate, and high L2
5
readers. Four features of oral proficiency were examined: grammatical complexity, well-
formedness, informativeness, and comprehension. Grammatical complexity is concerned
with the structural complexity of utterances—a function of both length and presence of
relational devices such as conjunctions and cohesive ties. Well-formedness refers to correct
grammar. Informativeness describes the amount and quality of information provided in
response to specific questions, and comprehension refers to the understanding of questions
demonstrated by appropriate response.
Subjects were 57 low-SES, Spanish-speaking third graders of Mexican descent, who
began learning English as a second language in kindergarten or first grade. Subjects had at
least two years, but not more than three years, exposure to English. The subjects were
divided into three groups according to their performance on auditory vocabulary and word
reading subtests of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test.
Reading data were collected on each student individually, using four short passages
followed by multiple choice questions developed by the author. Second language oral

language data were collected using the Shell Game, an individually administered, simulated
science lesson about seashells designed by Wong Fillmore and colleagues (1982).
Data analysis compared L2 oral proficiency characteristics exhibited by low,
intermediate, and high L2 readers. Results indicated mean scores on each oral language
feature increase monotonically, with Group 1 (low L2 readers) performing the lowest. This
pattern is consistent except for well-formedness; here, the low and intermediate groups were
about identical. The second finding is that there is a lot of variation in oral proficiency in
each group of readers. However, the most variation can be found among the poorest readers.
And the variation increases as one moves from the best to the worst readers. The authors
state that this is because some children in the lowest reading group were relatively orally
proficient in English (after two years of schooling in English), but still couldn’t read well.
In summarizing the findings, the authors note that all four oral language proficiency features
yielded differences among low, intermediate, and high L2 readers. These differences were
always significant between low and high groups for all four features. Where differences were
not significant between groups, there were trends in the direction of low to high.
Although research has indicated a relationship between L2 oral proficiency and L2
literacy, there has been considerable debate regarding the implications of this relationship
for instruction: How proficient must a student be before beginning literacy instruction in
English? A recent National Research Council report (Snow et al., 1998) and an International
Reading Association resolution (1998) suggest that if native language reading instruction
does not precede or coincide with English reading instruction, then English reading
instruction should be delayed until a modicum of oral English proficiency has been achieved
(cited in Fitzgerald, 1999). Others (most notably Fitzgerald, 1995, 1999) question this one-
way relationship between second-language oral proficiency and second-language reading.
Fitzgerald (1999, p. 22) notes that “ these correlational studies do not provide support either
for the position that English orality must precede English reading or vice versa.” She
6
maintains that findings are mixed, and the direction of the relationships has not been fully
investigated. Furthermore, she cites evidence that orality and literacy can develop together
(Fitzgerald & Noblit, 1999).

A recent study by Geva and Petrulis-Wright (1999) confirms the position that oral
English proficiency and literacy can develop concurrently, at least in young children. The
study examined the relationship between three aspects of oral language proficiency
(OLP)—vocabulary, grammar, and listening comprehension—and three aspects of English
reading skills—pseudoword decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension. The
study involved 31 first graders beginning English reading in their first language, and 63
Punjabi children beginning English reading in their second language. It followed these
children for one year. Children who had not lived in an English-speaking country for at least
four months were excluded.
Not surprisingly, results indicate that L1 and L2 children differed in English OLP.
The L1 group had larger expressive and receptive vocabularies, and was better able to repeat
sentences varying in grammatical structure, to judge the grammatical correctness of English
sentences, and to comprehend stories they listened to more accurately than their L2
counterparts. Moreover, the linguistic skills of L2 learners continued to be lower than their
counterparts in grade two, although both groups showed steady improvement between first
and second grades. In spite of these OLP differences, the two groups did not differ on reading
skills, which improved steadily for both groups over the course of the study.
According to the authors, the absence of L1-L2 group differences on reading
measures does not indicate that OLP is not related to reading. Beginning, normally
developing L1 readers have the oral language tools necessary to approach beginning reading,
and in fact, their oral language may exceed the language demands of early reading texts. The
L2 pattern, however, was not a replica of the L1 pattern. In the L2 group, with the exception
of listening comprehension measures, OLP was positively and significantly correlated with
both word-based reading indices and reading comprehension. The linguistic knowledge of
L2 learners does not surpass the linguistic demands of the reading tasks. Thus, those L2
learners whose oral language is relatively better developed tend to be those whose reading
skills are also better developed. This suggests that the framework suggested by Chall may
differ for second language learners at least initially; oral language proficiency plays a role in
both isolated reading tasks such as pseudoword learning as well as in reading
comprehension. Geva (p. 24) suggests that at least initially “OLP plays a different and

perhaps more holistic role in young ESL learners than it does in L1 learners. With regard to
decontextualized reading tasks, vocabulary may be a proxy for other, cognitive-linguistic
processes, such as phonological awareness and phonological memory, which underlie oral
and reading skills development and which drive vocabulary growth as well as reading skills
development in L1 learners.”
The results suggest that lack of general oral language proficiency should not explain
consistent difficulties in acquiring decoding and word recognition skills among L2 learners.
Even in the absence of linguistic fluency on these tasks, normally developing children can
7
learn to read words and decode nonwords accurately. Persistent difficulty on these tasks, in
spite of adequate instruction, suggests that the problem may be primarily in basic cognitive
domains (e.g., phonological processing skills, naming speed) and not in an underdeveloped
OLP. Second, different components of OLP correlate with different components of literacy;
well-developed listening skills and relative ease in understanding the spoken word are
typically associated with more advanced reading comprehension. At the same time, the
ability to perform other linguistic tasks, such as focusing on word meaning or attending to
the grammatical accuracy of utterances they listen to, is related to young children’s ability
to read words out of context and to decode unknown words. Word recognition skills are in
turn related to reading comprehension. Thus, instruction should target language development
as well as word recognition
There is also evidence that second-language learners' oral development can be
enhanced through second language reading instruction (e.g., Elley, 1981; Elley &
Mangubhai, 1983). Anderson and Roit (1996), Gersten (1996), and others maintain that
reading instruction focused on second-language comprehension can be helpful to learners at
all levels of second-language oral proficiency (even for those with learning disabilities
[Klingner & Vaughn, 1996]), and, in fact, that second-language reading comprehension can
generate gains in second-language oral skills. With regard to beginning reading skills,
Vernon and Ferreiro (1999) found that oral communication alone did not contribute to
children’s awareness of the sound structures of language. Their findings suggest that reading
and writing activities may contribute to children’s awareness of sound structure because as

they read and then begin to write words that have meaning for them, they begin to analyze
their own speech. This, in turn, promotes early reading development.
The research has focused on the relationships between components of oral language
proficiency and components of literacy. Clearly, there is a relationship between second
language oral proficiency and second language literacy. Questions remain regarding the
nature of this relationship, however. The studies cited above suggest that it is important to
clearly define the component skills of oral proficiency and literacy when examining
relationships. For example, in the study by Geva and Petrulis-Wright (1999), had listening
comprehension been used as the only measure, the authors would have concluded
erroneously that oral proficiency does not predict basic reading skills. It is also important to
“contextualize” relationships between oral language proficiency and literacy because the
demands at different levels of literacy may impact the relationship between these variables.
For example, as hypothesized by Chall (1996), a strong language background may be of
primary importance in the later reading stages, when skills associated with speech
comprehension are targeted, whereas it plays less of a role for younger children reading texts
that demand less language knowledge. Other factors, including the quality of classroom
instruction, and child background variables such as prior knowledge and native language
literacy, may impact the relationship.
3
Their review was a systematic search of the research literature between 1980 and 1998 including in their
review all studies that (1) employed a quasi-experimental or experimental design, (2) used an adequately
defined and reported treatment that targeted specific forms and functions (either morphological, syntactic, or
pragmatic), and (3) used dependent variable(s) that were measures of language behavior related to the specific
structures targeted by the independent variables.
8
EFFECTIVENESS OF SECOND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION
It is important to review what we know about effective second language instruction, in light
of the relationship between English oral proficiency and literacy. In a recent study, Norris
and Ortega (2000) employ systematic procedures for research synthesis and meta-analysis
to summarize findings from experimental and quasi-experimental investigations into the

effectiveness of L2 instruction. This is the first study to synthesize L2 instructional research
using meta-analysis. It should be pointed out that most of the studies were conducted with
adult learners (79%); only 16 of the 77 studies included non-adult subjects (1 elementary, 10
junior high, and 5 high schools). Furthermore, only 40% of the studies took place in second-
language or immersion settings. The other studies took place in foreign-language settings.
Notable in examining the effectiveness of strategies for developing language proficiency in
children is that the authors found so few experimental and quasi-experimental studies of
school-age second language learners in a context in which the L2 is the societal language.
3
Several descriptive models for types of L2 instruction characterize the studies of
instructional effectiveness. Long (Long & Robinson, 1998) had proposed that instructional
options can be of three types, depending on whether instruction requires learners to focus on
meaning, forms, or an integration of the two. According to Long, instruction that focuses on
meaning assumes that exposure to rich and meaningful use of the second language can lead
to incidental acquisition of the L2 system. Instruction that expects learners to focus on forms
in isolation (FonFS) assumes that the target L2 forms can, and need to, be taught one by one
in a sequence externally orchestrated according to linguistic complexity. Finally, instruction
that focuses on forms integrated in meaning (FonF) capitalizes on brief interventions that,
in meaningful communication, point out linguistic properties (mostly grammatical structures)
that appear to cause trouble for second-language learners. In doing this, teachers must take
into account the learner’s level of second-language acquisition, so as not to teach forms that
are too difficult, and the usefulness of the forms in future communication. Long (1997)
contends that FonF instruction is likely to be more effective because it is consistent with
what L2 researchers know about how second languages are acquired.
According to Norris and Ortega (2000), common to all L2 type-of-instruction studies
is the investigation of different treatments that may be categorized according to the manner
in which instructional delivery focuses learner attention on target L2 features. Accordingly,
two general research questions were identified. First, how effective is L2 instruction overall
and relative to simple exposure or meaning-driven communication? Second, what is the
relative effectiveness of different types and categories of L2 instruction? The authors also

addressed three additional questions: Does type of outcome measure influence observed
4
The average effect size observed across all instructional treatments indicates that treatment groups differed
from control/comparison/baseline groups by approximately one standard deviation on immediate post-
experimental outcome measures. This average overall effect size suggests that focused instructional treatments
of whatever sort far surpass non- or minimally-focused exposure to the L2. However, a high overall standard
deviation (0.87) indicates that treatment effectiveness is widely dispersed around the mean.
9
instructional effectiveness? Does length of instruction influence observed effectiveness?
Does instructional effect last beyond immediate post-experimental observations?
The authors found that L2 instruction results in large target-oriented gains,
4
that
explicit types of instruction are more effective than implicit types, and that focus on forms
in isolation (FonFS) and focus on forms in the context of meaning (FonF) result in equivalent
and large effects. Further findings suggest that the effectiveness of L2 instruction is durable
and that the type of outcome measures used in individual studies likely affects the magnitude
of observed instructional effectiveness. Generalizing findings is limited because the L2 type
of instruction has yet to engage in rigorous empirical operations and replication of its central
research constructs. Changes in research practices are recommended to enhance the future
accumulation of knowledge about the effectiveness of L2 instruction.
Finally, the authors note that particular selections and combinations of related
instructional features drawn from the models constitute more specific techniques that have
begun to be investigated in recent years. Moreover, the authors point out that as the research
agenda has developed, it has become more complex. Previously absolute questions about the
effectiveness of various types of L2 instruction are being redefined and stipulated according
to various moderator variables. These include the internal status of a learner’s inter-language,
age, language aptitude, and L1 background as they bring about the acquisition of specific L2
features, for instance, simple versus complex forms.
DEVELOPING ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

IN THE CONTEXT OF TEACHING
ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS TO READ
Learning to read is a complex task for beginners. They must coordinate many
cognitive processes to read accurately and fluently. Readers must be able to
apply their alphabetic knowledge to decode unfamiliar words and to
remember to read words they have read before. When reading connected text,
they must construct sentence meanings out of word sequences, and retain
them in memory as they move on to new sentences. At the same time, they
must monitor their word recognition to make sure that the words activated
in their minds fit with the meaning of the context. In addition, they must link
new information to what they have already read, as well as to their
background knowledge, and use this to anticipate forthcoming information.
—National Reading Panel (2000)
5
It should be noted that the review draws extensively on the findings of the National Reading Panel in
describing what is known about effective literacy instruction for English-speaking students.
10
In the sections that follow, the review examines key components of literacy,
phonemic awareness, word reading, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In examining
each area, it addresses what we know about developing English literacy for English-speakers,
the issues that arise for ELLs as they read and write in English because of their developing
oral English proficiency, and effective instructional strategies to help ELLs master reading
and writing in English.
5

Phonemic Awareness Instruction
What L1 Research Tells Us
Phonemic awareness (PA) is the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes, the smallest
units of spoken language (phonological awareness is the broader category). PA measured at
the beginning of kindergarten is one of the two best predictors of how well children are likely

to learn to read. Discovering phonemic units is helped greatly by explicit instruction in how
the sound system works and thus the structured PA training taught was effective and students
retained their skills after the treatment ended. Strong gains in PA transferred to reading and
spelling. The following training criteria emerge as effective from a review of the research:
# Focusing PA training on one or two skills was significantly more effective for teaching
phonemic awareness than focusing on multiple skills. In particular, two types of PA—
blending and segmenting—benefitted reading much more than did an approach that
included other skills, such as first-sound comparisons and phoneme deletion;
# When effects of letter use were examined after readers with disabilities were removed
from the database, a significant advantage of letter use was found. Thus, PA training
makes a stronger contribution to reading and spelling when it includes teaching children
to manipulate phonemes with letters, rather than being limited to speech;
# The most effective way to teach PA is in small groups possibly because of enhanced
attention, social motivation to achieve, or observational learning opportunities;
# Effect sizes were larger for two mid-length time periods, 5 to 9.3 hours and 10 to 18
hours. Thus, PA training does not need to be lengthy to exert its strongest effect on
reading and spelling.
The final decision about which PA skills to teach should take into account the task
difficulty, whether students can already perform the manipulations being taught as
determined by the pretests, and the expected use of the PA skill. The following tasks are
ordered from easy to difficult based on findings of Schatschneider, Francis, Foorman,
6
Minimal pairs included: v-b (I and F); ch, sh (I and F); l-ld (F); s-st (F); n-nd (F); v-vd (F); m-n (I, F), sp-s
(F); z-s (I); p-b (F); sm-m (I) v-f (F); n-ng (F); j-ch (I); s-st (I). I refers to the initial position in a word and F
refers to the final position in a word.
11
Fletcher, and Mehta (1999): first-sound comparison, identifying the names of pictures
beginning with the same sound, blending onset-rime units into real words, blending
phonemes into real words, deleting a phoneme and saying the word that remains, segmenting
words into phonemes, and blending phonemes into nonwords.

It is important to note that when PA is taught with letters, it qualifies as phonics
instruction. When it involves teaching students to pronounce the sounds associated with
letters and to blend the sounds to form words, it qualifies as synthetic phonics. When it
involves teaching students to segment words into phonemes and to select letters for those
phonemes, it is the equivalent of teaching students to spell phonetically.
Issues for English Language Learners
Typical English-speaking children have considerable knowledge available for analyzing
language when they enter school: several thousand words in their vocabularies, some
exposure to rhymes and alliterations, practice in writing their own names and “reading”
environmental print, and other sources of information about language. Leaving aside the
difficulties of limited oral proficiency in English, however, problems can occur for children
who are not English speakers and have not broadened their listening skills to include English
sounds. For example, for Spanish-speaking children from Latin America, there are eight
English phonemes absent from Latin American Spanish (for example, the English short
vowels as in “pit,” “pet,” “puf” have no counterparts in Spanish). Also, between 46 and 53
consonant clusters in English appear in the initial position of the word and more than 36
consonant clusters appear in the final position, while Spanish is limited to 12 consonant
clusters that can occur both in the initial word and syllable position. In addition, Spanish has
no final consonant clusters such as “ld” and “sk” (Kramer & Rubison, 1983).
Promising Practice
Two studies indicate that children can be taught to hear sounds that do not appear in their
first language. Kramer and Rubison (1983) investigated the effectiveness of a four-week
auditory discrimination training program in English for Spanish-speaking children with
regard to four contrasting pairs of sounds taught and fourteen other sound pairs not taught.
6
The subjects were 15 Mexican American students in first, second, and third grades from two
urban public schools in Kansas. Subjects, stratified by school and grade level, were assigned
randomly to control and experimental groups. All had reading levels above the primer level
but not above the first grade level. The program focused on 36 word pairs that contrasted
7

Note that pretest results indicated that on some of the critical experimental measures, the JP group was
significantly ahead of the BB group. Thus it was necessary to control statistically for pretest differences.
Because many of the measures departed wildly from normal distributions, the authors could not use pretest
scores to control for initial group differences. Thus, the authors used gain scores to examine differences between
pre- and posttests. With regard to the control measures, overall, good control was achieved on oral language
at pretest, on auditory perception and on the untreated phonological measure of rhyme awareness, or alphabet
knowledge at pretest.
8
Sylheti is the language of the Surma valley region, consisting of most of the Sylhet Division in Bangladesh
and Cachar District in Assam, and is spoken by over 9 million people. It is related to the rural dialects of eastern
Bengal, but with a high proportion of words derived from Persian and Arabic, and has a distinct grammar.
12
English sounds potentially difficult for Spanish-speaking children to distinguish. From these,
testers selected 18 pairs of contrasting sounds based on previous studies. During testing,
subjects were asked to identify whether minimally contrasting word pairs sounded the same
or different, e.g., sheet-cheat. In addition, the test included 16 control items (same) and 8
pairs of words that were easy to distinguish. Training lasted 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week,
for 4 weeks. One sound pair was taught each week, and others reviewed. The teacher showed
pictures of characters with particular sounds in their names (i.e., Chile Choo for ch). Once
a sound had been introduced, it was reviewed often through oral and written exercises and
games.
The results of a 60-item auditory discrimination posttest, analyzed by one-way
analysis of covariance, showed that experimental subjects performed significantly better than
controls on total score, sounds taught, and sounds not taught. The findings demonstrate a
positive effect of a brief ear-training program for the development of overall auditory
discrimination. Note that there was a transfer effect to sounds not taught. It was sufficient to
train children on the most difficult sounds for children to distinguish, rather than on all the
sounds.
In recent work in England, Stuart (1999) sought to extend to English language
learners previous research findings that demonstrate phoneme awareness training,

particularly when combined with letter-sound teaching, results in improved reading and
spelling. His research also sought to provide training for whole classes, rather than small
groups, use a commercially available program, and give minimal training to teachers. The
study sample consisted of two groups of 5-year-olds; 96 were ELLs enrolled in either the
experimental or control program.
7
The vast majority of the ELLs were Sylheti speakers.
8
The experimental group used the Jolly Phonics program; it provided early, structured,
focused and rapid teaching of phoneme segmentation and blending skills and grapheme-
phoneme correspondence. The program emphasizes meaningful stories, pictures, and actions
that reinforce recognition and recall of letter-sound relationships and precise articulation of
phonemes. An interesting feature is that children learn gestures to help them remember the
letter-sound associations. Children learned to look at the letter, recall the object, say its name,
and isolate the first consonant. The control group was instructed with a holistic approach
based on Holdaway’s (1979) use of big books.
13
Schools could choose one approach or another and statistics indicated that there were
no significant differences between schools on social, ethnic, and linguistic composition or
on key Stage 1 SAT performance. Teachers received some training advice about
implementing the interventions. Teachers using the big books approach were told to
concentrate on word-level work, emphasizing words and letters. Researchers met with
teachers using the Jolly Phonics program and discussed the content. Teachers received copies
of a training video and had the opportunity to attend a training seminar. Teachers were asked
to spend one hour per day for 12 weeks on reading and writing, either using the big books
or Jolly Phonics. Researchers ensured that children were receiving the intervention for an
hour a day for the allotted 12 weeks.
Before the 12-week intervention, children were pre-tested on measures of spoken and
written language, phonological awareness, and alphabet knowledge. They were post-tested
on all measures immediately after the intervention and one year later. Control measures that

were used included oral language, auditory perception, alphabet knowledge, rhyme
awareness, and mathematical knowledge. Experimental measures included phoneme
awareness, phonics knowledge, reading and writing standards, and delayed post-tests.
Results indicated strong, specific, significant, and positive effects of the Jolly Phonics
intervention; the experimental program increased phoneme awareness, phonics knowledge,
and children’s ability to apply these in reading and writing. In the year after the intervention,
both groups made comparable progress in most areas. At the end of the year, however, the
experimental group was still significantly ahead in phoneme awareness and phonics
knowledge, and on standardized and experimental tests of reading and writing. Thus, early
concentration on phoneme awareness and phonics can radically improve reading and spelling
standards in inner-city second-language learners.
Several other effective programs for English-only children that might be tested with
English learners include the ADD program by Lindamood and Lindamood (1975) that also
teaches children to identify and monitor articulatory gestures associated with phonemes, and
Sound Foundations (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1993), which teaches phoneme identity
through pictures.
Word Reading
What L1 Research Tells Us
Research on word reading has distinguished several ways to read words (Ehri, 1991, 1994).
Decoding words never before read involves transforming graphemes into phonemes and then
blending the phonemes to form words with recognizable meanings. Letters might be
individual letters, or digraphs such as TH, SH, or OI, or phonograms such as ER, IGHT, OW,
or spellings of common rimes (the vowel and consonants that follow a beginning consonant
9
Instructional issues not resolved by the research include: 1) what content to cover, it is clear that major letter-
sound correspondences need to be taught, including short and long vowels and digraphs, but there are other
irregularities as well; 2) methods to motivate children; 3) value of decodable text; 4) whether to teach many
letter-sound combinations before using them or introduce a few and then provide reading and writing activities
that help the children apply the correspondences.
14

in a word) such as -AP, -OT, -ICK. A second way to read words is by analogy to new words.
A common basis for analogizing is recognizing that the rime segment of an unfamiliar word
is identical to that of a familiar word, and then blending the known rime with the beginning
sound. For example, children who know “fork” can easily read “pork” or “york” the first time
if they know the sound of the initial consonant. Reading by analogy is thought to require the
PA skills of onset-rime segmentation and blending. Another way to read is from memory,
sometimes called sight word reading. For individual words to be represented in memory,
beginning readers are thought to form connections between graphemes and phonemes in the
word. These connections bond spellings to their pronunciations in memory (Ehri, 1992). For
example, the word “women” does not follow phonetic rules, but the consonants, and in some
cases, context provide sufficient clues to enable a reader to associate the string of letters with
the familiar word (if the child has the word “women” in her or his oral vocabulary). A fourth
way is prediction in which readers use context clues, their linguistic and background
knowledge, and memory for the text to anticipate or guess the identities of unknown words.
Text reading is easiest when readers have learned to read most of the words by sight because
little attention or effort is required to process the words and this enables readers to attend to
meaning.
Programs that teach children to read words differ on many dimensions. The National
Reading Panel examined only experiments that compared the reading performance of
children who had received systematic phonics instruction to the performance of children
given nonsystematic phonics or no phonics instruction. Findings substantiated the impact of
systematic phonics instruction on learning to read. More specifically, children who were
taught phonics systematically benefitted significantly more than beginners who did not
receive phonics instruction in their abilities to decode regularly spelled words and non-
words, to remember how to read irregularly spelled words, and to invent phonetically
plausible spellings. In addition, phonics instruction contributed substantially to children’s
growth in reading comprehension and somewhat less to their oral reading skill.
9
Three types of phonics programs were compared in the analysis: 1) synthetic
phonics programs that emphasized teaching students to convert letters into sounds and then

blend the sounds to form recognizable words; 2) larger-unit phonics programs that
emphasized the analysis and blending of larger subunits of words (i.e., onsets, rimes,
phonograms, spelling patterns) as well as phonemes; and 3) miscellaneous phonics programs
that taught phonics systematically but in ways other than the synthetic or larger-unit methods.
Also in this category were those unclear about the nature of their approach. Although the
systematic phonics programs are all significantly more effective than non-phonics programs,
15
they do not appear to differ significantly in their effectiveness, although more evidence is
needed to verify the reliability of the effect sizes for each program.
Issues for English Language Learners
A difficulty for students who already read in their first language is that some graphemes
represent different sounds in the second language than they do in the first. For example, the
/b/ in English can be pronounced as either a /v/ or /b/ in Spanish, and the “i” in English as
in the word “it” is pronounced in Spanish like the vowel in “eat.” Children whose first
language has a different orthography than English (e.g., Russian or Arabic speakers) face an
additional challenge (Grabe, 1991). Direction-of-reading, punctuation, and spacing
differences between languages do not appear to cause difficulty (Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989,
cited in Grabe, 1991, p. 387).
With prediction, readers use context clues, their linguistic and background
knowledge, and memory for the text to identify unknown words. Thus, English speakers
making initial attempts at reading understand, if they are successful, the products of their
efforts. They read words they know and sentences they understand. They can use context and
probabilities effectively, and they can correct themselves efficiently. Non-English speakers
do not have this basis for knowing if they are reading correctly because the crucial meaning-
making process is short-circuited by a lack of language knowledge. For example, building
on the earlier example, if a child does not know the word “women,” even the best decoding
skills will not provide the right word. Giving children initial reading instruction in a language
that they do not yet speak, without the requisite oral language support, can undermine their
chances to use meaning to support decoding (Bialystock, 1997).
Promising Practice

Recent work by Stuart (1999), cited above, demonstrates that phoneme awareness training,
particularly when combined with letter-sound teaching, results in improved reading and
spelling. Success for All (Slavin & Madden, 1999, 2001) has also been found to be effective
in improving the word reading of English language learners. Francis Scott Key, an
elementary school serving low-income students in Philadelphia, evaluated Success for All.
Sixty-two percent of the students were from Asian backgrounds and the remainder were
African American and White. A similar Philadelphia school was the comparison site. Results
indicated that Asian children in the Success for All school at all three grade levels performed
far better than control students. On average, Success for All Asian students exceeded control
students by 2.9 years in fourth grade and 2.8 years in fifth grade in reading grade equivalents.
Moreover, these Success for All students were reading about a full year above grade level
in both fourth and fifth grades, whereas similar control students averaged 1.9 years below
16
grade level in fourth grade and 1.8 years below grade level in fifth grade. Outcomes for non-
Asian students were also very positive in fourth and fifth grades. Experimental-control
differences were statistically significant on every measure at every grade level. Other
evaluations (Livingston & Flaherty, 1997; Ross, Smith, & Nunnery, 1998) also found
positive results for students in the ESL adaptation of Success for All when compared with
control students.
The Success for All reading program is 90 minutes a day. During this time students
are grouped into classes of about 15 students all at the same level. The reading program
emphasizes development of basic language skills and sound and letter recognition skills in
kindergarten, and uses an approach based on sound blending and phonics starting in first
grade. The K-1 reading program uses a series of “shared stories,” mini-books that gradually
introduce syllables, letter sounds, and sound-blending strategies in stories that use a very high
proportion of decodable words. Kinder Roots and Reading Roots, the program for
kindergartners and first graders, respectively, also emphasizes oral reading to partners as well
as to the teacher, instruction in story structures and specific comprehension skills, and
integration of reading and writing. The schools in the study also provided English as a second
language (ESL) instruction. After the reading period, ESL teachers tutored individual

students experiencing difficulties in reading one-to-one or in small groups. Tutors offered
assistance tied to success in the reading curriculum.
Fluency
What L1 Research Tells Us
Fluency is the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression. Recent
conceptualizations of fluency extend beyond word recognition and may embrace
comprehension processes as well (Thurlow & van den Broek, 1997). Fluency is freedom
from word identification problems, but fluency may also include the ability to group words
appropriately into meaningful grammatical units for interpretation. Fluency requires the rapid
use of punctuation, and the determination of where to place emphasis or where to pause to
make sense of a text. Readers must carry out these aspects of interpretation rapidly and
usually without conscious attention. Thus, fluency affects reading comprehension by freeing
cognitive resources for interpretation, but it is also implicated in the process of
comprehension, as it necessarily includes preliminary interpretative steps.
Efficient word recognition is associated with improved comprehension. To
understand this, word recognition must be divided into its components such as accuracy and
automaticity of word recognition. Accuracy of word recognition is not sufficient because
non-fluent readers do not have enough resources available for comprehension while they are
reading. It is important to keep in mind that even highly skilled readers may have trouble
10
Because fluency is not generally assessed and is an important indicator of reading ability, it is worth
mentioning methods used to assess fluency. They include: miscue analysis, pausing indices, running records,
and reading speed calculations. See Wagner, Torgesen, and Rashotte (1999) for a standardized measure of word
reading efficiency that tests the speeded reading of single words.
17
with some words. However, more skilled readers fixate on function words less than unskilled
readers, make shorter fixations, longer saccades (the jump of the eye from one fixation to
another), and fewer
regressions.
10

Research indicates that procedures that emphasize repeated oral reading practice or
guided repeated oral reading practice are effective in building fluency for children reading
in their first language. These procedures enable a student to read and reread a text several
times, increase the amount of time for practice through one-to-one instruction, tutors,
audiotapes, peer guidance, or other means, and some have carefully designed feedback
routines. Procedures that have students reading passages orally multiple times while
receiving guidance or feedback from peers, parents, or teachers have a clear impact on the
reading ability of non-impaired readers at least through fourth grade, as well as on students
with various kinds of reading problems throughout high school. The biggest impact is on
reading speed, and oral accuracy, and in some cases on comprehension.
Another widely used approach to developing fluent readers entails encouraging
children to read a lot. One such approach is sustained silent reading in which children read
approximately 20 minutes a day silently without monitoring. In most cases, students select
their own materials and there is no discussion or written assignment tied to the reading.
There is overwhelming correlational evidence that the best readers read the most and poor
readers read the least (Donahue, Voelkl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999). Because the data are
correlational, however, they could also be interpreted as the best readers just read more. It
is difficult to interpret the studies in which children are encouraged to read more (e.g.,
reading incentive programs) as evidence that this technique improves fluency, in part because
the studies are correlational, and also because most of them considered the impact on overall
reading, not fluency.
Issues for English Language Learners
With regard to efficiency, ELLs may have less opportunity to read aloud with feedback than
their English-proficient peers. Some of this practice occurs at home, but parents of ELLs may
not be literate in English. Moreover, reading fluency is bolstered if children understand the
text they are reading. ELLs are less likely to comprehend English text because of their
limited English proficiency.
18
Promising Practice

Assisted reading may hold promise for increasing ELLs’ reading rates, word accuracy and
comprehension. Van Wagenen, Williams, and McLaughlin (1994) examined the
effectiveness of an assisted reading program for three, low SES, 12-year-old Spanish-
speaking students learning English. The intervention consisted of baseline and assisted
reading. During baseline reading, the teacher introduced and discussed new vocabulary with
the students before they began to read, tape recorded each student reading the new passage
for four minutes, and asked students to complete written work based on the story. Written
activities focused on vocabulary meaning and understanding the significance of each word.
During assisted reading, each student read silently while listening to a teacher’s recording
of the passage, read the passage aloud, read the passage three times silently with the tape, and
read the passage a second time aloud. Analysis indicated that the use of assisted reading
techniques improved reading rate, reduced student error, and increased comprehension.
During the assisted reading, students increased the number of words they read correctly per
minute, decreased error rates (measured by counting numbers of insertions, omissions,
mispronunciations, reversals, and substitutions), and improved comprehension (percentage
correct on the written activities following each story and from criterion-referenced tests for
each unit). Clearly, more work is needed in this area.
Vocabulary
What L1 Research Tells Us
A major determinant of reading comprehension is vocabulary. Cunningham and Stanovich
(1997) reported that vocabulary assessed in first grade predicted more than 30% of reading
comprehension variance in 11th grade. In the development of vocabulary, Anglin (1993)
provides a particularly careful estimate, making clear distinctions between root words (which
must be learned), derived words (semantic variations of root words), inflections (syntactic
variations), and compounds. Derived, inflected, and compound words may be understood if
the root word is known. Anglin reported growth in root word vocabulary from an average of
about 3,100 root words in first grade to about 7,500 root words in fifth. In addition, a
comparison of quartile groups (with regard to vocabulary knowledge) in different grades
indicates that a large difference in root word vocabulary occurred by second grade, with the
mean for the lowest quartile being 4,100 fewer words than the mean for the highest quartile.

Biemiller and Slonim (2001) have found evidence for a common sequence of
vocabulary acquisition for English-only students. They studied root word vocabulary in two
normative samples—an English-speaking, wide socioeconomic range sample and an
advantaged sample. The authors estimated that in second grade, the mean normative
vocabulary was 5,200 root words, increasing to approximately 8,400 by fifth grade. During
11
Findings from the National Reading Panel (2000) indicate that ability levels and age differences can
significantly affect learning gains from vocabulary instruction methods. Thus it is important to consider
students’ ages and abilities in selecting instructional approaches and materials to bolster vocabulary.
19
grades 3-5, the lowest quartile of students added about 3 root words a day, whereas the
highest quartile added about 2.3 words a day. By fifth grade, however, children in the lowest
quartile averaged only fourth grade level because they had such a small vocabulary in second
grade.
Findings from the National Reading Panel (2000) indicate that various methods
improve students’ vocabulary.
11
First, computer use bolsters vocabulary when compared
with traditional methods or when computers are used as an ancillary aid. In one study,
researchers (Davidson, Elcock, & Noyes, 1996) used a computer that gave speech prompts
when the learner requested them; 5- to 7-year old students improved on three measures of
vocabulary with these prompts.
Second, a series of studies underscores that vocabulary learning results in
comprehension gains and improvement on semantic tasks. For example, McKeown, Beck,
Omanson, and Perfetti (1983) found that vocabulary instruction had a strong relation to text
comprehension in fourth grade students.
Third, the keyword method may significantly improve recall and be more helpful than
other approaches.

In this method, students learn the meanings of new words by using a

keyword, or “word clue,” that usually sounds similar to a salient part of the word they don’t
know. Sometimes, students look at pictures that help them figure out a sound or word
meaning; they may even be asked to generate their own images linking the words (National
Reading Panel, 2000).
Fourth, vocabulary can be acquired through incidental exposure. One example of this
is storybook reading. One particular study (Schwanenflugel, Stahl, & McFall, 1997)
examined the characteristics of words and texts that were most amenable to vocabulary
acquisition and found that verbs, adverbs, and adjectives are learned better than nouns, and
concrete words are learned better than abstract ones. Research has also found that student-
initiated talk or active participation is important during storybook reading (Dickinson &
Smith, 1994; Senechal, 1997). One interesting study (Drevno, Kimball, Possi, Heward,
Gardner, & Barbetta, 1994) indicated that when teachers modeled a correct response to a
student’s error and asked students to repeated the correct definition, the lesson was more
effective than when students were not required to repeat the right answer.
Fifth, according to research (Senechal, 1997; Leung, 1992; Daniels, 1994) high
frequency and multiple, repeated exposures are important as well as is extended and rich
instruction of vocabulary (applying words to multiple contexts).
20
Sixth, a few studies (Brett, Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Wixson, 1986; Carney,
Anderson, Blackburn, & Blessing, 1984) suggest that pre-instruction of vocabulary facilitates
vocabulary acquisition and comprehension.
Seventh, restructuring materials or procedures (e.g., substituting easy for hard words
in a passage, teaching what components make a good definition, selecting relevant words for
vocabulary learning, group-assisted reading in dyads over an unassisted group) bolsters
comprehension (Scott & Nagy, 1997).
Finally, some studies found that a mix of contextual and definitional approaches work
better than one or the other (Stahl, 1983). However, one study found specific gains from a
single approach semantic mapping over context-rich or target-word treatment (Margosein,
Pascarella, & Pflaum, 1982) and several studies found that direct instruction in learning word
meanings was helpful (Tomesen & Aarnoutse, 1998; White, Graves, & Slater, 1990).

According to the National Reading Panel (2000), implications for instruction include:
# a need for direct instruction of vocabulary items that are part of a text to be read;
# as many connections as possible to a specific word;
# the importance of multiple exposures;
# vocabulary words to be learned should be useful in many contexts, so it might be best
to focus on words important to content area learning;
# vocabulary tasks should be restructured to ensure that the learner is fully aware of the
task and how to complete it;
# revising the task such as creating opportunities for group learning or revising learning
materials can also lead to increased vocabulary learning;
# vocabulary learning should entail active engagement in learning tasks;
# computer technology can be a powerful method of increasing vocabulary;
# vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning;
# how vocabulary is assessed and evaluated can have differential effects on instruction
and thus the panel suggests that dependence on a single measure is not optimal; and
# dependence on a single vocabulary method will not result in optimal learning.